Wrong-way drivers, also referred to as “ghost drivers,” cause deaths, injuries, and significant property damage in the event of an accident. A wrong-way driving incident is understood here to mean driving against the compulsory direction of traffic on a unidirectional roadway. A unidirectional roadway is a roadway that is structurally separated from oncoming traffic. Unidirectional roadways are found on expressways or thruways, such as upgraded federal highways. Wrong-way driving incidents may be divided into forward travel and reverse travel, forward travel being initiated by wrongly entering an off-ramp or by turning.
Over one-half of wrong-way driving incidents start at junctions of expressways. In particular, wrong-way driving incidents on expressways cause accidents due to the high vehicle speeds, and thus the high collision speeds, frequently with fatal consequences.
Recognizing wrong-way driving incidents via navigation devices is not always reliably possible, since the information of the navigation device, such as road class and direction, is provided too late for most cases of wrong-way driving incidents; i.e., the vehicles are then already in the driving path against the direction of traffic.
Modern motor vehicles use inertial sensors, such as acceleration sensors and yaw rate sensors, as well as the steering angle for determining the state of the vehicle, in order to implement safety and comfort systems. Furthermore, a large number of modern vehicles currently have an internal GPS module, for example, for a navigation system or for a position determination of the motor vehicle. More and more vehicles are already equipped and will be equipped in the future with video sensor systems.